One Step Too Far
by DomesticPruEst
Summary: The members of Strega know that to get at SEES they have to get to their leader, but they take it way too far. Shinjiro and Akihiko put aside their temporary differences to go find her. Shinji/Minako, and Strega. Rated M for strong themes.


The room was eerily dark and empty that evening except for the soft flashing of the television in the far off corner and the light from a small laptop screen as the rhythmic clicking of computer keys reverberated through the silence. A blue haired young man sat there with a calm, cool demeanor, conducting business that most people would find deplorable without even the slightest show of conscience whatsoever. He surveyed the progress of his internet empire while sipping casually at a steaming cup of coffee, awaiting the return of his friend and compatriot who was making a delivery over at the alley behind Port Island Station. A breif smile spread across his face as he read and made a note of the latest request that had recently popped into the website's inbox from yet another anonymous sender. It was always that way. Nobody ever had the guts to own up to the dark and primitive desires that drove them to make such secretive requests. Thiers was a business of revenge and more often than not, people ended up in a very serious state after all was said and done. Sometimes the targets lived to see them walk away and sometimes they didn't. They always got their business done in one way or another and it didn't matter how it happened; conscience or morals played no part in it whatsoever. Strictly speaking, revenge was their business and this time the job was especially tempting.

The young man working away at his laptop looked up from the screen as distant footsteps and the light jingling of keys sounded at the front door. It opened without much further sound, revealing a tall, lean, young man with long hair and eerie golden eyes that could seemingly bore straight through a person's soul to where their true thoughts lay. He was one of the few people who wasn't put off by this strange parody of a western messianic figure and his peculiar ways.

"Jin." The newcomer greeted his friend, casually stuffing his keys into the pocket of his snug, faded jeans.

"Takaya." Jin acknowledged with a nod, turning back to his screen.

"Burning the midnight oil so to speak, I see." Takaya spoke without his typical sneer as he entered through the door of their somber apartment, the pale skin of his shirtless torso almost ghostly in the darkness of the room. He moved with an unnerving sort of fluidity to his stride as he made his way over to the end of the table where Jin sat with his laptop open, pondering the upcoming job. With his disturbing voice and eerie mannerisms it was no wonder why so many others found his friend frightening. Not Jin though. Takaya had saved him from a life of self destruction years before, showing him the error of his ways when Jin was still coming to terms with the cursed power they had both been given. The two had since become close friends. Well, as close of friends as one could get when life was measured day to day instead of dwindling away in blissful years like everyone else. Jin was intelligent and calculating, but reclusive, whereas Takaya was charismatic and the one whose boldness allowed him to take the lead in most situations. It was an arrangement that suited them both quite well, and along with a third member, a strange girl named Chidori, they made the most out of their situation. "It would appear as though we have some more business to conduct, my brother." Takaya's long hair swayed as he leaned over to look at the screen, the tattoos on his arms seeming like shadows cast on his skin by the faint electric light. "Tell me, who has incurred the wrath of their peers this time?"

"Heh, you'll like this one, Takaya." Jin grinned mischeivously as he sat up eagerly in his seat, expanding the message to full screen so they could both view the gem of a job brought to them. "It seems that our rivals' fearless leader has made a few enemies herself." He glanced over at Takaya, with another sip of his coffee in anticipation of his friend's reaction.

A sly smile spread it's way over Takaya's thin face, golden eyes lighting up as they surveyed the news presented to him. "I see." His voice was syrupy smooth as he stood up, resting one hand on his narrow hip while the other pensively stroked at the stubbled hair of his chin. "A very appealing request indeed. It is one which we would be fools not to accept." Takaya paused, his interest piqued and a flush of color rising to the surface of his pale skin briefly at the thought of dealing with this particular target. " It appears as though not even someone such as herself is impervious to the effects of jealously. What do you say to this, Jin?"

Jin set his coffee down on the table and nudged his glasses back to the bridge of his nose with a slender, nimble hand. "I say we take it, of course. You really think those pains in the ass will be trying so hard to get in our way once we're done with her? We'll be able to keep the dark hour for a while longer and have a little fun while we're at it." He chuckled quietly and smiled with narrowed eyes, sweeping the blue fringe of hair away from his face as he mulled over the options and potential risks that lay ahead of them in this mission.

This girl, this 'leader' they spoke of was an enemy of thiers; the one who had been there each and every time thier plans had been foiled and who seemed to be the very glue that held SEES together. Not only that, but she was more than a little easy on the eyes as well. All the guys on both her team and theirs could see it and she had won many admirers amongst the student body with her pleasing appearance and annoyingly sunny disposition. That, in fact, was what landed her in the hot water that warranted the request they'd recieved in the first place. The name of the sender remained anonymous as always, but it wasn't difficult at all to piece together what was going on after hearing from Chidori all that occurred within that little gang of goody two-shoes. From what Jin could surmise, this girl was a school rival of Minako's for the affections of a certain silver-haired boxing champion and was driven by a deep seeded jealousy and hatred over his choosing of her to put a hit out on the girl she felt had wronged her. Their website had become quite popular in recent weeks since the rumors began spreading through the gossip-hungry halls of Gekkoukan High, and she'd managed to track them down in order to exact the revenge she felt entitled to. The message this girl sent to them was seething with anger, calling for the defiling and crushing of her rival's spirit.

_'She took Senpai away from me, and she needs to pay. Make it so she never wants to be with him ever again. I don't care how you do it, just crush her.'_

Jin and Takaya glanced at each other, their combined interest visible on their faces even through the faint glow of the laptop screen. It was agreed in that moment that they would take this person up on their request, not only for the pay but for their own personal gain and satisfaction as well. To see the opposition demoralized in such a way would be a great boon to their cause as SEES had become quite a nuisance in the weeks since their new leader's arrival. They weren't going to kill their target this time, oh no. They were going to leave her alive to savor the sweet agony and dehumanizing hopelessness that would wither her spirit and eat away at her very soul, and damn it, they were going to enjoy every last tantalizing second of it.

"There will be retribution for this, you realize." A quiet voice called out from the corner of the darkened room. The voice belonged to their secretive third member, the artistic and reclusive Chidori. She sat huddled in the corner of the room, barely illuminated by the flickering of the television, quietly sketching unseen images onto the worn pages of her artbook. Her long, crimson hair hung in ribboned segments around her slender frame which was almost entirely concealed within an intricately laced and decorated white, gothic dress which billowed out around her like a blanket. Even clad all in white she still managed to remain concealed the entire evening until the moment she chose to speak up. Her voice was chilling, as though she were some sort of otherworldly being speaking to them of dark and terrifying possibilities. "Take heed to not reveal yourselves to her. She is strong and there are those who would hunt you down for what you are about to do." Chidori warned, looking more like an eerie porcelain doll than the person she was.

"Quiet yourself, Chidori. Find her for us." Takaya's yellow eyes glared at her from between long, wispy strands of dusty colored hair a he turned to Jin with a smile on his gaunt face that practically oozed with anticipation and sinister intentions. "Tonight, my brother, we hunt."

It was late evening and the glowing signs of the all-night eateries amd karaoke bars lit the way for Minako as she walked the damp, dark streets of the city alone. The soles of her dainty shoes marked each step with a sharp click like the hands of a clock, reminding her just how late she was in getting back to the dorm. The lights of the buildings all around her reflected with vibrant colors in each quivering puddle of water she passed and rippled like rainbows when she stepped through them. The rainsoaked pavement of the lonely street that evening was like a mirror into the more sordid side of Port Island that only seemed to come out ater the streetights died down, and it made Minako increasingly agitated that she was still out to witness it. She knew she shouldn't be out alone at night like this, but she'd had to work a double shift at Chagall and was left without a ride after one of her coworkers feigned sickness and left early. The Dark Hour was going to be starting soon and she needed to get home before she became stranded in the coffin-lined, shadow-infested streets by herself. The dangers were too severe for a lone fighter and she also had her responsiblities towards the other members of her team to consider. There was one teammate in particular would be concerned for her safety and she didn't want to face the wrath of yet another scolding for being out late on her own again. He meant well, she supposed, but she still didn't want to get yelled at after such a long day. The heart in her chest raced in wild urgency, and her feet ached with the dull, persistant throb of a long work day as she hurried her way past barking dogs and drunken business men staggering boisterously towards home.

Despite her misfortune when it came to transportation, Minako at least had an umbrella with her to shield her auburn hair and stained work uniform from the steady drizzle that had been blanketing Iwatodai for the last few days, leaving the place dull and depressing even at the best of times. The constant pattering of raindrops on the clear vinyl of her umbrella and the steady click of her shoes on the lonely street masked the looming menace of the footsteps that approached her from the secluded alleyway as she passed by.

A sudden flash of cold steel.

A hit to the head making the world go black...

Minako woke up moments later to long waves of wispy hair draping over her shoulder and the firm press of a body against her back as lean, wiry arms gripped her tightly. Stubble grazed roughly against her cheek and her stomach churned in utter revulsion as hungry hands ran their way over her trembling body. The more she struggled, the tighter the arms gripped her, like pale, constricting snakes and an all too familiar voice sounded in her ear, the warm breath so close against her skin sending a shiver of disgust through every fiber of her being. "So it seems we finally found you...leader." The words oozed out from her captor's lips, laden with snister desires and diabolical intentions.

With a cold shock of realization that made her gasp and her stomach want to heave itself out onto the wet pavement, Minako knew exactly who it was that held her. To think of him being so close to her, and to feel his hands roaming over her body filled her with a rage and revulsion that she could scarcely contain. She could see the distinctive tattoos covering the ghostly pale skin of her captor's arms and that musky smell of man and incense...there was no mistaking the identity even for a second. "You asshole!" Her voice hissed out, full of venom and hatred as ahe began to kick and struggle desperately against the press of his cold skin. A strong, gun calloused hand clamped over her mouth like a vice before she could scream.

"Oh hush now dear." The voice in her ear sounded as oily and sinful as the serpent of the garden, only this time there was no knowledge to be stolen or to be tempted by; only the cold shock of abject horror that coursed through Minako's frenzied mind as her uniform shirt was slowly untucked from the waistband of her black pants. She knew full well what was going to happen and it made her want to scream and kill and cry all in that instant as cold lips trailed along her jawbone lustfully, making her skin feel as through it would wither away from poisonous disgust. "Strictly business, you see." One button undone...then another...then yet another button bringing her innocence closer to being crushed like the soft petals of a flower underfoot. Minako struggled and kicked desperately, screaming muffled pleas from behind the hand that kept her mouth shut. If only she'd carried her evoker...

"Takaya, wait." Another voice called out from the dark as Jin, ever the voice of reason, stepped out from the shadows towards the two struggling forms with a familiar nondescript looking pill bottle in his hand. He took one of the capsules between his slender fingers and held it up to Minako's lips before she got a chance to open her mouth to scream. Her head shook from side to side violently, eyes wide open in terror until Takaya steadied her in his grip once again. When her lips wouldn't part to take the small pill, Jin held her nose shut until she was forced to gasp for air, taking that opportunity to force the drug in. He held her mouth securely with his surprisingly firm grip lest she spit the pill back into his face, and tilted her head back until he could see her throat move and be sure the capsule was safely in her system. It tasted bitter and vile and it made Minako cringe and heave. "We don't want her calling her persona, now do we?" The blue haired young man questioned his friend with a sly chuckle, dark eyes showing through the tint of his glasses as he ran a hand through the loose locks of Minako's damp hair.

Minako could see herself in the reflection on those glasses and hated the helpless wretch of a girl she saw in them. She'd just been forced to take the dreadful suppressant drug that was slowly eating away at not only her attackers, but someone very close to her. Would it now take control of her too or was one even enough? The rain that came down around them masked the tears that shook from Minako's eyes as she struggled in fear to break free from Takaya's grip, crying out and pleading for her life as she kicked desperately. In her wild abandon she struck Jin in the gut, sending him sprawling onto the soaked concrete of the darkened alleyway. She could feel her body being whipped around as a gun butt slammed against her face, making stars and monstrous illusions dance in her head before she was slammed against the brick wall to her left with such force that it rendered her shaking body breathless. With the swift grace of a predatory cat, Takaya was on her again, this time wrenching her head backwards with a handful of auburn hair as he growled in her ear. "Breaking your spirit will be far too much fun. Yes. Your precious little friends won't be able to help you now." He reached up and grabbed the neckline of her already damaged shirt, tearing down violently, sending the remaining buttons and her nametag scattering amongst the heaped garbage bags around them. "No one to hear you scream." He whispered menacingly with another rough yank of her sopping wet hair which fell in scattered, stringy segments out of the hair ties she wore. The recoil of her struggle against his grip caused her head to strike the wall and blood to cloud her already blurring vision.

Jin picked himself up off the pavement with a green-sleeved arm clutching his torso where he had been kicked. His usually calm demeanor lay as shattered as Minako's phone that he crushed underfoot, sealing off their hostage's last option for help. "Enough of this shit, Takaya! We're wasting time toying with this bitch!" He spat the words out with uncharacteristic venom and anger in his voice.

With that Minako was thrown angrily to the ground, crashing into the piles of refuse in the alley, sending garbage cans clattering and rolling away into the shadows. The commotion and pitiful pleas went unheard as the sounds of passing cars and the music of the downtown nightlife slowly began to recede. The eerie green light of the dark hour was seeping in around them signalling the end of the chance for rescue as the two men struggled over the bruised and battered female form below them. She cried, pleaded and screamed out in helpless pain to ears that could not hear her. No one could come for her now. No one could stop the pain and helplessness that wracked her body as she lay soaking on the ground, her innocence being violently and mercilessly taken from her. Her hands were held in restraint above her head while she struggled against the body looming over her, hair dangling about her face and unnerving yellow eyes chiming menace and doom through the deepest recesses of her soul. The bare skin of her backside, bruised like a fragile peach from the struggle, was lifted from the cold puddle she'd been thrown into as her undergarments were torn away and discarded, the last barrier that had been keeping her safe. A high, piercing scream of horror erupted from the very core of her being as pain radiated throughout her body like waves of fire. Knowing that there was nobody that could hear her cries for help and nobody to save her, the will to fight drained from Minako's body, each and every time she was taken making more hopeless tears silently shake loose from her bruised and puffy eyes.

The green light and silence of the Dark Hour still loomed heavy over the three bodies hunched in the shadowed alley, the rain since dying down and the terrible job the two young men had set out to accomplish having finally been completed...much to their satisfaction. Jin rose up first, straightening his the rumpled legs of his pants and sweeping the blue fringe of his hair away from his eyes with a toss of his head. He wiped his glasses dry, nudging them back up to the bridge of his nose whle he waited for his friend. Takaya stood up gracefully, once again doning his faded jeans and fastening the belt that hung low around his waist, he looked over at Jin and smiled a smug and devilish smile. "Well, my brother, the pay for this job will certainly be great indeed. I'd say we fulfilled their request quite well, did we not?" He chuckled to himself, voice smooth like the low hiss of the snakes his tattoos so closely resembled.

"Why...?" The two looked down as the broken body and spirit of their rival's leader as it shifted on the pavement, one ruby red eye straining open to look at them. "Why?...who?" She groaned, her questions barely more than a whisper from the hoarseness of her throat. Her clothes lay torn and strewn about the pavement like old rags and livid red welts marred her normally attractive, cream colored skin. To see her broken in such a way was almost as satisfying as it was getting her to that sorry state.

"Simply business, like I said. jealousy and revenge happen to be very lucrative, and we have one of your teammates to thank for it this time." Takaya grinned down at Minako, revelling in the sight of a job well done. "Jealousy drove the one he rejected for you to issue the orders." He crouched down, holding her chin roughly in his hands, making her look him in the eyes no matter how much it hurt to move. "Send our regards to your dear Sanada-senpai for this, my dear." At those words, Takaya relinquised his hold and rose silently, his pale form still moving with an unnatural grace despite having taken several hits during the struggle. "Come Jin. Our work here is done."

As her two attackers dissappeard like ghosts into the shadows and her consciousness began to fade, all Minako's addled mind could wrap itself around was the last thing Takaya had said to her. It was definitely not the way she'd hoped to find out about a friend's feelings for the first time. She cried helplessly, alone and wracked with shame, hating herself, her eyes fluttering shut and her world going dark once again. The Dark Hour still hung around the broken girl in a palpable mist as she lay sprawled amongst the rain soaked refuse, left for dead and alone where no one even knew to look for her. Mercifully the shadows that prowled the night stayed clear of her, but would her friends even realize she was gone? Her nightmares of shame and agony would not cease, but within them rested a small kernel of hope that maybe somebody would care enough to come looking for her.

The constant pattering of rain was slowly beginning to recede to nothing more than a few scattered drops splashing shadowy ripples in the puddles of the darkened dormatory rooftop. Shinjiro stood there alone, shuffling from foot to foot in agitation, taking refuge under the overhang by the door and looking at the glowing screen of his cell phone as the smoke from his cigarette swirled upward in languid streaks past his face. He'd recieved no new messages in the last two hours and he was beginning to get more than a little concerned. It typically wasn't like him to give a damn one way or another what any of his dormmates did with their own time, but Minako was an entirely different story all together. When she'd texted him earlier in the evening indicating that she had to take a second shift and would be late getting home, he grumbled in annoyance as he stored away the dinner he'd made them, but he still understood. He knew she worked harder than anyone else on the team, but when midnight crept closer with still no sign of her, it was obvious to him that something was wrong. Flicking the spent butt of his cigarrette to the ground, he cursed himself for not having gone to pick her up from work when he probably should have. Wasn't that what boyfriends were supposed to do? "I'm no good at this shit..." He grumbled as he snuffed out the glowing embers of the cigarrette butt with the sole of of his boot.

Shinjiro looked up to the sky in concern and at that moment the moon turned a sickly shade of yellow, an eerie green light falling about the city as the mist of the Dark Hour reached it's shadowy tendrils out through the damp, silent streets below. "Shit! Minako!" The lighter he was holding clattered to the ground as he scrambled through the door and down the staircase, taking the steps two at a time in a frenzied rush towards the lounge on the first floor. Maybe she'd already made it home and forgot to say something...or maybe her phone had died and she couldn't get a hold of him. He hoped against hope that he was just being overprotective and that she was simply downstairs eating or waiting for him in his room like usual, but the chances of that were slim. She was too good of a leader to skip out on Tartarus missions for selfish reasons such as that. Nearly tumbling down the stairs in an inelegant heap, he paused at the landing, breathing heavily from the exhertion of his smoked out lungs as his dark eyes scanned the room around him. "Minako..." He said, regaining his composure somewhat as he approached Akihiko, who sat reclined on the couch with a book in his hand as if nothing at all was out of the ordinary. "...did she make it back yet?" If anybody else in the dorm knew, it would be him. He saw how he watched her at times.

"She's your girlfriend, isn't she? Why the hell would I know where she is?" Akihiko answered with a sneer, shrugging his shoulders as he sat back against the couch to absorb himself once more in his book. It would be a lie if he were to say that he didn't care where she was, but discussing the girl he still had feelings for with the friend who'd won her heart wasn't exactly his idea of a relaxing evening. Sometimes this attitude came off as overly confrontational, which wasn't initially intended, but Minako was a subject he'd been attempting to avoid talking about with him for some time. The tension had been escalating slowly over the last week or two and it was beginning to cause a rift between himself and the person he'd always felt of as more of a brother than a best friend. He didn't want to lose a friend in such a manner, but when he saw him dating the girl he'd been working up the guts to ask out, Akihiko couldn't help but feel more than a little angry and betrayed. Of course, he hadn't told anybody of his feelings towards Minako, or of his intentions, so he really had no one to blame but himself in the end and that mistake was the part that truly stung the most.

"Damn it, Aki! There's no time for this petty bullshit!" Shinjiro shouted, catching the attention of the other people in the room who had begun putting away their equipment when it seemed there would be no exploration of Tartarus that night. Akihiko was the only person who feigned disinterest at their leader's unusual absence; the change in his behavior becoming aggrivatingly apparent to everyone in the dorm ever since Minako and Shinjiro had begun seeing one another. "Look. You had your chance, but you didn't say anything, now did you? How the fuck was she supposed to know how you felt if you were too much of a damned pussy to say anything?!" Shinjiro's voice raised further as he momentarily lost sight of the urgency that had driven him down from the rooftop in the first place. Akihiko rose from his seat in anger, standing toe to toe with his friend, hands clenched and ready to punch him straight in the face if the challenge continued. Instead, Shinjiro cleared his mind with a shake of his head and let out a growl of frustration. If he hadn't taken control of his own temper, the chances for either of them making it out of the room in one piece were slim to none at all.

"I found her!"Fuuka gasped aloud from the other side of the room, shattering the tension that hung thick in the air like the weight of a rock crashing through a fragile pane of glass. It seemed that, unbeknownst to the two boys who argued between themselves like dogs over the last scrap of meat, Fuuka had summoned forth her persona and began searching the surrounding area for their missing leader. Shinjiro and Akihiko were not alone in their distress; the other SEES members there were equally concerned for her safety, albeit without the same sort of emotional and physical attachments that the two warring young men shared with her. "I found her. She's somewhere near the train station. But wait..." A stunned silence fell over the entire lounge as she spoke, all looking at the frail, blue-haired girl in rapt attention. "...something's wrong." Before the last words could even issue from her mouth, Shinjio and Akihiko ceased their bickering just long enough to share a look of wordless agreement before rushing out the front door of the dormitory. All hostilities were silently forgiven in those moments, superceded by the urgent need to find Minako, as they ran searching through the coffin-lined streets between the dorm and the Port Island train station.

The streets were dark and bathed in the cold mist of the Dark Hour, blood staining the walls all around the city as their feet carried them at breakneck speed through the macabre urban landscape towards their destination. They scoured each and every seedy alleyway they could find, pushing past emaciated stray cats and transmogrified drunkards until a soft sound could be heard echoing from the inky shadows ahead of them. The two exhausted young men paused, their breath puffing outward from their mouths like billowing clouds of steam in the cool evening air as they stood listening for that sound once more. Shinjiro crept forward carefully, evoker in hand, cautiosly approaching the edge of the brick walled building, his feet sending ripples of lurid, swirling colors through the puddles as he inched forward. In the distance a loud howl could be heard from a cat knocking over a trash can, but when the eardrum-piercing clatter faded away into the night the small, pitiful sound that lured him persisted, hopelessly urging him onward. Following the wordless plea ever closer, he could then hear the sound more clearly if he strained his ears to their very limit. There it was again. It made his heart race in his chest and his breath catch in realization that what he was hearing was actually the quiet sobbing of a young girl just around the corner. It never even occured to him that there was even the slightest chance that whoever was making the sound could be anyone other than his Minako. Concern and fear gripped him as his usual steely nerves crumbled away to a fine dust and his mind began leaping to all sorts of horrible conclusions. If she was crying though, at least that meant she was still alive. "Aki, this way!" Shinjiro called out as he nearly tripped over an errant trash bag on his way into the alley.

Minako laid there in a broken heap on the cold, soaking pavement exactly how Takaya and Jin had left her; demoralized and alone, unable to pick herself back up or to even will herself to call out for help. She merely laid there in the puddles and sobbed hopelessly, her clothes torn and scattered about the scene and her body on fire with the pain and humiliation of what she'd endured at the hands of her enemies. Despair and shame held her so tightly that she was unable to hear past her own tears to the sounds of shouting and footsteps racing nearer as Shinjiro and Akihiko approached from the street. She was barely conscious enough to notice the two blurry figures kneeling at her side, but she allowed herself to hope against hope for the breifest of moments that someone finally cared enough to find her. Oh, she had no idea..."Shinji?" Minako groaned feebly, her voice hoarse and unsure as she reached out, gripping the familiar red jacket as her puffy eyes opened slowly to look at her rescuers. The red jacket and faint smell of cigarrette smoke was familiar and strangely soothing to her senses, but when her eyes wandered over and caught sight of long white sleeves followed by a pair of black gloved hands reaching down towards her, she gasped and clung desperately to the one bit of familiarity that didn't frighten her. Seeing her friend there caused the terrible and shameful memories of what she'd endured to flood back in horrifying flashes of agony against the insides of her tightly clenched eyelids. She didn't hold it against him, but she couldn't bear to look at him while the wound was still so fresh and so real in her mind; it wasn't the way she'd ever wanted to find out about someone's feelings. The incident had cost her not only her innocence, but a large part of the psyche which once seemed so unshakable to all those around her. How was she supposed to carry on leading the team when she couldn't even pull heself together? She hugged herself tightly against Shinjiro's warm body, wanting to lose herself in the safety of his arms and hiding her face away from the memories that seeing Akihiko had brought back.

There was a look of injury and alarm on the young fighter's face as the girl he cared for so deeply shied away from his presence in what seemed like utter revulsion, once again jumping into the arms of his best friend. His heart sunk like a stone in his chest and he simply couldn't understand what he'd done wrong. His ability to speak seemed to escape him as easily as the breath from his lungs, his words having been stolen away from him until Minako herself broke the silence. "Th...they said it was because of you that they did this..." She looked at him briefly before turning and sobbing great gushes of tears against Shinjiro's chest as he grasped her broken body in his arms, cloaking her in his jacket in an attempt to ease her trembling with kind words and soothing sounds. "You turned her down and she...she sent them here..." Minako sniffled and wiped her eyes gingerly with the back of her hand, forcing herself to look at Akihiko once more. Their eyes met for a cold and quiet moment without anything needing to be said between them; the troubled look in his deep gray eyes speaking volumes to her then of confession, guilt, and infinite apologies.

"Shinji...?" Minako suddenly felt like her stomach was either going to wrench itself in knots or heave itself out onto the pavement as Shinjiro slowly began to stand, gathering her aching, half naked body off the ground, not caring at all when his own clothes started to soak through to the skin. "They...they made me take those pills..." Minako confessed meekly, staring upwards with wide, glistening red eyes and a face distorted by livid, puffy bruises and dried tears. The aftermath of what took place became more evident when the streetlights and vehicles slowly began to flicker back to life, the cold mist receding into the distance as the Dark Hour relinquished it's hold over Iwatodai once again.

"Don't worry, I'm here. Just relax, okay? You don't have to try and be strong." Shinjiro's voice remained calm for Minako's sake, but his body trembled with a murderous rage when the glare of flickering street lights caught the tiny form of a plastic prescription bottle laying open on the rainslicked ground near his feet. Shinjiro bit his bottom lip almost to the point of bleeding when he saw the contents of the bottle scattered haphazardly where it had tumbled out onto the pavement during the commotion. He bitterly recognized those pills as the ones Takaya and Jin had been giving him; the ones that had been slowly but surely eating away at his soul like a plague from the inside until Minako gave him a reason to give a shit about his own life. He'd quit the suppressants for her sake, now here she was having to endure the lingering side effects as well. The anger he felt when he looked upon that bottle before crushing it under foot in utter disdain, paled in comparison to the seething rage that burned through his entire body like an all-consuming wildfire.

"Those assholes are dead." Shinjiro growled through clenched teeth, staring down the quiet alley into the fading shadows as he clutched Minako tighter to himself as if to shield her from the hatred that surged from his aura in waves. Akihiko glanced over, seeing the look in Shinjiro's eyes at that moment as he held onto the girl they both loved, and he could sense that death was in the air that night.


End file.
